WEDNESDAY - 6TH MARCH, 2024
MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO
SINLESS SAINTS: THOSE WHO COULD CAST THE STONE
Read John 8:8 - 11
John 8:7, KJV
"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
It is indeed true that if you have not received mercy, you may not have learnt to give same. It is usually the cup with which you're measured that you tend to use to measure unto others. If you've enjoyed mercy somewhere, you'll really want to give mercy also as a refund and replenishment to others especially in that same area. An illustration I give.
I once got to a place where funding my education proved abortive and impossible any longer during my undergraduate days. Only that I enjoyed the mercy of a local scholarship. Due to this, I'm usually moved at every announcement on the inadequacy of students to pay their tuition. I see my having a tertiary education as an act of mercy, having found myself almost becoming a drop out. I found it an obligation of a sort therefore to help people fulfill their dreams by involving or contributing to sponsoring their education. This is how the mercy you have received teaches you to show others mercy. One time, Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. Afterwards, He instructs them to do likewise unto others. For that example, He sets a pattern.
John 13:13-15, KJV
"13 Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."
Doing likewise unto others will be proceeding from having received previously such a ministration. You naturally are taught by it to behave yourself. You therefore don't overestimate your service or your ministry to people in your own day because you're a debtor and fruit of some people's ministries also.
Watch those who are unnecessarily difficult in life however, they might have lacked mercy in their journey. Instead of enjoying mercy, they probably suffered somewhere. Having being abused this way, not learning how best to treat others, they mismanage and maltreat them. That may be because they once met people who made their journey difficult and utmostly stressful. For having not enjoyed kindness, they naturally by default dish same to others. This is where by naturalness, "they do unto others like men have done unto them." I observe the power of modelling there. What you model to people by doing is what they easily pick up to do because they'll find it easier having had an example in front of them. They'll just pick a cue from you. So, if you sow wickedness to people, you may be teaching them callousness to their own after-comers also.
In the verse we began to probe yesterday, Jesus responds to the persistent demand of the scribes and pharisees by saying, "he who has not sinned amidst you, let him cast the first stone." This statement if critically explored means, "permission is only granted to he that has not sinned or can prove so." Only such has the go ahead to cast stones. Now, let us assume there's someone like that in the congregation of those accusers that day who could cast stones because he has not sinned, hope you know his being empowered to cast stones will be coming from the fact that he has never for once sinned let alone receive God's mercy, pardon or forgiveness at a juncture. On that note, same may not be required of him to give or show to others. However, all of them were paralyzed and couldn't prove otherwise because they also at one time or the other had sinned and had enjoyed God's mercy. On that note, they were under obligation to give mercy. That is what Jesus confronts them with. He punctures them where they'll see their human foolishness, see themselves as legalistic men and repent. In that way, they couldn't stone the adulterous woman. They therefore relented and went away from the eldest to the youngest.
It means those unjust scribes and Pharisees acknowledge being recipients of God's mercy and forgiveness too. Therefore, their conscience prick them and their hearts smother them to give up the case.
I started by saying, "he who has received mercy will give mercy but he who hasn't may not have been taught to give same." He won't just understand why he should. If somebody needs tuition fee now, how it'll hit or resonate with me if I heard will be different from how it'll hit you. Our differing responses are so because I was once in that condition while you can't testify to what it means to ever desperately need tuition. Meanwhile, you may respond faster somewhere else where giving mercy comes to you as a force of reminder - of how you'd failed if God had not stepped in to rescue you also.
So, whenever you get to see judgemental people, it might be that they themselves were shown no kindness by anyone. Because they have therefore not been spared, they care less who becomes a scape goat. So, such might seek to cast the first stone because they believe they owe no man no duty or obligation that needs repayment. Today, God wants you to check yourself. Are you a giver of mercy? Are you moved by a bowel of compassion when you see people like sheep without shepherd being harassed by hunger, sickness or a need etc? I tell you, "if you have received mercy, you'll be moved to give mercy." Only those who haven't received mercy [yet none has not because God gives his rain to fall both upon the righteous and the unrighteous] will deny others of it.
PRAYER: Father, may I learn to do unto others as you have done and role modelled to me. I shall not be a hypocrite.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Numbers 4:1-5:31, Mark 12:18-37, Psalm 48:1-14, Proverbs 10:26
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